


She Thinks About His Face

by Mandergee



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Actually it does especially if you're caught up on Season 2, F/M, May contain spoilers for season 2, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 18:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3738328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mandergee/pseuds/Mandergee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What do Melinda May or Phil Coulson think about, when they're trying to fall asleep?</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Thinks About His Face

**Author's Note:**

> I found a rather cool writing prompt on tumblr: What does your character think about when they're trying to fall asleep?
> 
> Contains MINOR spoilers for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D season 2.

     She thinks about his face.

     When she's trying to fall asleep she pictures him, but not the way he looks every day- blue eyes full of distractions and unable to focus on anything that didn't involve rebuilding efforts. She doesn't think about the way his forehead wrinkles slightly when he thinks no one is looking, because he suddenly think about a problem S.H.I.E.L.D is facing in a way that no one else will ever have to deal with it.

     She thinks about his face when they first met, the way those same blue eyes lit up with something new to her, a look she'd never seen before when he saw her step into the briefing room. S.H.I.E.L.D's Golden Boy and Golden Girl (to not be mistaken, she sleepily tells herself, with the show her mother would have on reruns when she would come home from school). Neither knew yet that the other was of such importance, and she knew full well that he had been briefed on her goofiness and aptitude for pranks she'd pull on unsuspecting fellow agents who may quickly find her wrong side.

     She remembers the day she told Phil Coulson she loved him, more than anyone she'd ever loved in her entire life, but never _really_ told him because he would have run away- like her father, like her mother emotionally did whenever she would want to seek out a hug for a really bad day or any particular teenage disaster. Melinda May wasn't, most had said, a typical teenager, but even still she'd wanted hugs like any other, and as she could recall neither of her parents had ever been particularly affectionate.

     When the thought had crossed her mind she'd been watching his back, studying their surroundings and waiting for the drop they both knew was eventually coming. Sausalito, with the sun shining warm on the tops of their heads and freckles appearing on her cheeks even as she kept her eyes glued firmly to the image of the man across the street. Coulson favored open collared shirts on their undercover assignments, and his skin turned pink beneath the bright rays of summer, curls of brown hair peeking out from behind the crisp white linen.

     She thinks she loved him then almost as much as she loves him still.

     She hasn't seen him in a week, and when she thinks about his face she wonders if she'll ever see him again.

     But she can't think about that now.

\---

     He thinks about her face when he can't drift off at night.

     Not the way it looks now, with the lines of consentration around her eyes that were never there before, the exhaustion he suspects no one else can see in the way her lips curve slightly downward. There's a sadness that rarely showed up before, and she's angry on the inside, fighting a battle no one else will ever understand.

     When he can't fall asleep and the world is too much for him to handle he focuses on her eyes the way they were _before_ , the soft brown that reminded him- at first- so much of his mother that he gravitated toward her immediately. Her personality was entirely different, nothing like the woman who had baked him countless apple pies in lieu of birthday cakes, who had sung to him as they sat alone at the kitchen table when no one came for his party.

     He had friends, sure, but there'd been no one like Melinda.

     He knew everyone considered him the 'Golden Boy', had laughed at the notion that he was a sort of 'teacher's pet' when Barton had first shared the rumor before a briefing. Before _the_  briefing when he would formally meet Melinda May, watch her walk into the room laughing alongside Romanov and let her expression move smoothly from teasing to focused in a matter of seconds. Very little had been circulated about the newest rising star, her hand-to-hand skills getting higher marks than his and the varying skills she possessed having differing results than his own in the field.

     When they'd been partnered together in Sausilito he'd found her to be a better asset than he'd imagined, and while he'd suspected there was a hint of competitiveness in the her approach it hadn't taken long for him to realize she had his back better than any partner he'd ever had before. As she'd floated in the bay and he'd been unable to reach her he'd felt guilty, avoided her gaze when he finally fished her out because something in the way she took his hand told him she might feel the same way he did, and he wasn't sure exactly what his feelings were.

     Thinking back on it now he wonders if he loved her, thinks that she'd wanted to tell him she was in love with _him-_ and if she had he might have admitted that he was in love with her too. If she'd opened her mouth he'd have said something, but he'd only heard her breathing over the coms and watched her from his position on the bench across the street- seen her eyes meet his as she read the headlines on a copy of _People_ , and didn't say anything at all.

     He thinks he might have loved her the first day they _met_ , though he can't really be sure. She was so quiet, and so difficult to read that he wasn't even sure she'd noticed him when she sat down. He'd seen her around, plenty of times, but that day was the first they'd been introduced, and if they hadn't been he imagined she never would have picked him out. 

     He hasn't seen her in a week, since she'd pressed her hand against his chest and pushed him into the elevator. Since 'Real S.H.I.E.L.D' had taken over and she'd told him S.H.I.E.L.D could only exist with him around to ensure it would.

     He doesn't know what tomorrow will bring either of them, or if he'll ever see her face again.

     As he finally falls asleep he listens to Hunter's soft snores fill the cabin and wonders if May is fighting her old demons in her dreams. If he was there he could stop them, like he used to do when they'd share a room undercover and her screams would wrench him out of sleep.

     But he can't think about that now.


End file.
